France is the linchpin in the next phase of the sovereign debt crisis, which is about to hit the core countries of the Eurozone. France cannpy be saved. It’s too late. It is simply a matter of time. And once it goes, so will the rest.

The collapse of the EU proper will follow. Arguing about the UK pulling out is a moot point, because the EU is finished anyway.

I give it a year before the ball starts to roll. Many have been saying this will happen for a long time, now, but people can behave irrationally for many, many years. Decades, in fact – as we have seen.

It will soon reach breaking point…

The euro is unsustainable. It is absurd that a country of olive farmers (Greece) is bound into an economic union with one of the most industrialised nations in the world. Something has to give at some point. The trouble is that this idea of European unity seems to exert an incomprehensible witchcraft upon Europe’s politicians, and they will tolerate an awful lot of voter fury before breaking with the EU.

How many times have we seen it here, where a prime minister will fall upon his sword before admitting he’s simply carrying out Brussels’ instructions, the Euro-constitution/referendum/Lisbon treaty fiasco being a classic example. The railway privatisation being another.

A currency should exist to serve a nation. Currently in Europe, all things are being sacrificed — whole nations and peoples, if necessary — to the euro’s survival; not prosperity, mind you, merely survival. Europe now exists to serve the currency. That cannot last, and it won’t, but I worry that, the longer Europe’s leaders attempt to suppress the public’s disgust, the greater will be the final eruption. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear.

I don’t expect anything from the European system except that it explodes

We are now seeing the fault lines appear that have been predicted from the outset. Countries with such different economies and cultures cannot exist in an economic union. Since the start of the EU the rules for economic union have slowly been dropped in favour of some haphazard social project. People like Barosso and Juncker are now hoping to use Germany as a piggy bank to continue financing this crumbling monstrosity, but I have a feeling the Germans will tell them where to shove it.

What’s so utterly crazy about France is that I don’t even think Marine Le Pen can save it, just as dirigiste as the rest she is. Sure, they can leave the Euro and devalue, but what then? Without reforms it will just be a slow – but somewhat less painful – decline into irrelevance.